And here we go: Greece announced a series of privatization.
For liberals there is nothing surprising or revolutionary, it is in the order of things. Our social democracy have lived well above their means (or should I say our means) and they must now sell their jewelry to bail out families.
Liberals should rejoice! But watch out, not that much ...
This could be a problem is not production private goods and services as such, but the privatization process itself.
What do we speak today by privatization?
recall a moment the main central axiom of the liberal (or libertarian): the primacy of the individual and private property.
It is the individual and private property that are sovereign in society. The corollary of this axiom is that anything (natural or artificial) is owned by someone, therefore there is nothing that is publicly or collectively, for in this low world everything (service, property, land etc. ..) that was produced was by someone and it is then the legitimate owner.
So private property is legitimate when its acquisition was not done by force, in other words fly.
And this one is fundamental and at the heart of this discussion, as many economists have an overly utilitarian, "as it works and it's been one of prosperity continues." Thus they rejoice at the idea of privatizing the goods and services by any means, because they will be productive and effective, which is undeniable. But they only focus on the superiority of an economy with private ownership of means of production. They thus evade the moral aspect of things is what this privatization is legitimate? In other words was it made the means of production (mail, transport, etc. ..) to their rightful owners?
They forget, in essence, the question of justice.
To illustrate this let us return to the previous case of privatization.
Consider a famous example; Renault.
Renault originally belonged to a family, it was a private company, as a bakery, and suddenly that was nationalized after the war, and this act of nationalization is akin to theft. Whatever the reason, many public or general interest, it is theft, plundering, pillaging. We see today that our Chavez did the same with his gang of thugs by nationalizing companies producing coffee in his country.
Then, for various reasons the company was privatized, meaning that it puts the company under private law. If we followed the liberal logic to the letter should have been make the company to its rightful owner, ie the rights of the family with Renault, but that they have nothing to pay.
What happened in reality? It has divided a portion of the company in a number of units or shares that have been put up for sale on the markets. Sell a few things that were stolen, this is called concealment. Better yet, the state remains a shareholder of a portion of the business and while there he put his "agent" at the head of it. The process can be even more pernicious, not only the land confiscated by the former GDR did not been returned to its rightful owners but they were redeemed by the apparatchiks of the old regime after the looting of goods is always done when dividing plunder.
But what about those businesses that were exclusively created by the state? How the process of privatization should he proceed? Who is the rightful owner? And especially what about the additions made by the state to the company that has been nationalized?
Hans-Hermann Hoppe in his famous book The Democracy God That Failed offers us so clear solution to this problem.
I would not go back on it gives the solution for companies of the Soviet Union and its vassal states, where in theory there was abolition of private ownership.
I would concentrate solely on that of our social democracies where there is a coexistence of public property and said private property said.
Just simply take the main axiom of liberal thought and ask this simple question: who is the legitimate owner of the property ?
was already part of the answer: the original owner whose business has been robbed / nationalized.
But what about companies that the state has created ex nihilo or additions made by the State to enterprises?
The state is in the terms "business owner", which finances the state?
Simply the taxpayer.
Thus the taxpayer happens to be the rightful owner of the company public or segments added to this one when it was nationalized.
Thus the taxpayer is that we must return now.
But how?
Depending on the contribution of each, that is, by its tax rate, which will define its share in financing the company. We will deduct the payments received, subsidies and tax loopholes to determine the real part of everyone in the undertaking (s) state. Officials will not be affected, because they really do not pay taxes (they do a surrender of a portion of wages paid to them by the State ... the State).
Only after that every citizen can have as it sees fit for his actions, he could then sell to financial groups or wealthy individuals or just keep them. Thus the privatization process has been really fair: there will have been returning the property to its rightful owner, which in our case is the taxpayer.
Utopian? Certainly, and no political party would the audacity to include this "privatization" of public property in its program.
But this reflection is nevertheless essential because it reminds everyone that it is the taxpayer who is the true owner of property of the state and not the men of the state.
Because what we may see in privatizations to come (and which may be many) is an opaque process of redistribution of wealth between powerful where goods will often powerful financial groups or wealthy and influential individuals with strong ties to the state, such as banks which are parastatals (sometimes buyers will be men of States themselves or their relatives) and where the money will go into the hands of these men of States excluding completely the taxpayer in the fraudulent transaction.
This would actually be to use precise and appropriate, a vast mafia scam.
The owner of the property, that is to say the taxpayer has been robbed. It has financed a property for years, which he will receive no return on investment, and ultimately more people will be enriched on his back. Justice has not been made and the taxpayer has reason to be dissatisfied.
Privatization, and liberalism will then again appear as an unequal system favoring only the rich at the expense of the poor, whose defense will again difficult or impossible.
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